Customers pay for products and services, but what they really pay for is relief from a problem: a task that takes too long, a process that is confusing, a cost that is too high, a skill they lack or a risk they cannot judge. The bigger and more painful the problem, and the more completely you remove it, the more customers will pay, or the more of them will choose you.
One way to express this is the idea of a hassle premium. “Hassle” means the pain or burning problem customers face. “Premium” means the reward, in price or market share, earned by solving it. The bigger the hassle solved, the bigger the premium.
Solving a hassle gives a business two possible rewards. If you price high, you earn a large premium from customers who value the relief. If you price low, you win a large market share from customers who previously could not afford a solution or did not have one. Many of the most successful businesses of recent decades were built by spotting hassles that existing providers had ignored.
This article describes ten kinds of hassle that customers will pay to remove, with examples, and a practical process for finding hassles in your own market, including in business-to-business and engineering services.
Start by finding the unsolved hassle
Before looking at the ten types, the approach is simple:
- Find a hassle the market has not solved: a problem customers complain about, work around or simply accept.
- Understand it deeply from the customer’s perspective.
- Design a solution that removes it so effectively that customers come to depend on you.
1. It takes too much time
Where do customers waste time in the buying process or in using a product? Saving time creates immediate goodwill and loyalty.
Online property portals transformed home searching. Buyers can filter thousands of listings by size, location, price and features in minutes, then visit only the properties that genuinely fit. An eyewear retailer introduced home eye tests: an optometrist visits the customer’s home or office, tests their eyes, shows frame options and delivers the glasses the next day.
In business-to-business: slow quotes, slow drawings, slow approvals and long lead times are common hassles. A supplier who quotes in a day instead of a week, or delivers in three days instead of three weeks, often wins business at a higher price.
2. It takes too much effort
Is the customer working hard to buy or use your product? Effort is a hassle to remove.
Railway passengers once queued for hours to book tickets. Online booking and mobile apps eliminated the queue. Hailing a taxi once meant waiting on the street and haggling over fares. Ride-hailing apps made booking fast, convenient and transparent, and increased the number of people choosing cars over other transport.
In business-to-business: complex ordering, repeated paperwork, hard-to-find information and chasing suppliers for updates all add effort. Simple reordering, online portals, clear documentation and proactive updates remove it.
3. It is complex, uncertain or confusing
Choice and complexity create confusion. Customers fear making the wrong decision.
Insurance comparison platforms simplified a confusing purchase by presenting policies side by side with neutral comparisons and handling the calculations. Customers who had felt overwhelmed could choose with confidence.
In business-to-business: technical products, compliance requirements and engineering decisions are often confusing for buyers. Suppliers who explain options clearly, recommend the right solution and handle technical complexity relieve a significant hassle.
4. It costs too much
If you can dramatically reduce the price of something that customers previously paid heavily for, you can expand the market enormously.
One smartphone maker won a large share of a price-sensitive market by offering high specifications at much lower prices than established brands. A budget hotel network offered rooms with the comfort of mid-range hotels at the price of basic guesthouses.
Price reduction only works sustainably if costs are genuinely lower, through a different model, technology, scale or efficiency, not simply lower margins.
5. It is hard to know what you are getting
Customers hesitate when they cannot visualise or experience the outcome before buying. Reducing that uncertainty removes a major barrier.
Wedding planners now use virtual reality to show couples what their venue, stage and lighting will look like. Property developers use 3D animations and virtual tours so buyers can see an apartment before it is built.
In engineering and manufacturing: 3D models, renders, prototypes, samples, simulations and pilot runs let customers see and test a design before committing to tooling or production. That reduces risk for the customer and speeds decisions.
6. It distracts from what matters most
Customers have many demands on their attention. If you can take care of work that distracts them from their core priorities, they can focus on what drives their growth.
Leading technology companies focus on design, software, marketing and innovation, and outsource manufacturing to specialist contract manufacturers. The manufacturer removes a hassle, and the brand focuses on its strengths.
In business-to-business: outsourced services such as drafting, maintenance, compliance, logistics, bookkeeping and IT relieve customers of non-core work. The pitch is not just “we do this task”, but “you can focus on what grows your business”.
7. It requires skills the customer does not have
Many tasks require specialised skills, such as carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, beauty services, engineering or legal advice. Finding reliable skilled people is itself a hassle.
Home-services marketplaces solved this by vetting skilled professionals and dispatching them quickly to customers’ homes, often within hours.
In business-to-business: specialist skills in CAD, tooling design, process improvement, automation, testing or regulatory compliance are often scarce in small and mid-sized firms. Providing them on demand, without the customer having to hire, is valuable.
8. It is hard to find the right supplier
Even experts struggle to find reliable vendors for unfamiliar needs. Business directories and online B2B marketplaces grew by solving exactly this, bringing together suppliers across categories so buyers can compare and contact them quickly.
In business-to-business: a supplier who coordinates multiple vendors, manages subcontractors or provides a single point of contact for a complex project removes a significant hassle.
9. It requires expensive equipment or resources
Buying expensive machines for a short project or occasional use rarely makes sense. Equipment hire businesses, offering earthmovers, rollers, excavators and lifting equipment, solve this hassle. Similarly, recruitment agencies supply short-term skilled labour, saving businesses the effort of recruiting and training for temporary needs.
In business-to-business: contract manufacturing, shared testing facilities, measurement services and equipment-as-a-service models let customers access capability without capital investment.
10. It is inconvenient in daily use
Small daily inconveniences add up. Products that remove them can become enormously popular.
Students designed a simple low-cost device to make public toilets easier for women to use. A sauce brand introduced a squeezable sachet that made spreading sauce on bread easier than pouring from a bottle. Neither was high-tech. Both solved real everyday annoyances.
In business-to-business: awkward fixtures, difficult maintenance access, confusing controls, heavy manual handling and poorly designed packaging are daily inconveniences in workplaces. Solving them improves safety, productivity and satisfaction.
Finding hassles in your market
A practical process:
- Map the customer’s journey, from recognising a need to buying, using, maintaining and replacing your product or service.
- Look for pain at each step: delays, effort, confusion, cost, uncertainty, distraction, skill gaps, supplier difficulties, equipment needs and daily inconvenience.
- Listen to complaints, including complaints about competitors. Reviews, support calls and sales conversations reveal hassles.
- Observe customers using products and processes. People often accept hassles without mentioning them.
- Ask “what is the most frustrating part of…?” in customer conversations.
- Estimate the cost of each hassle to the customer in time, money, risk or stress. The biggest costs suggest the biggest opportunities.
- Design and test solutions, starting small.
A hassle audit for your own business
Hassles are not only opportunities in other markets. Your own customers may experience hassles in dealing with you. A simple audit:
- How long does it take for a customer to get a quote, place an order, receive delivery and get support?
- How much effort do customers spend chasing updates, finding information or correcting errors?
- Where are customers confused: product choice, pricing, terms, documentation or invoices?
- What uncertainty do customers feel before buying, and how could samples, models, trials or guarantees reduce it?
- What do customers do themselves that you could do for them, and would they pay for it?
Every hassle you remove from your own customers’ experience makes you easier to buy from, which is itself a competitive advantage. Over time, being the easiest supplier to deal with can matter as much as having the best product. Ask a few customers to walk you through their last purchase from you, step by step, and note every point of friction.
Pricing the solution
Once you remove a hassle, decide whether to take the reward as premium or market share:
- Premium pricing suits hassles that are costly to customers and where your solution is clearly superior and hard to copy.
- Low pricing for share suits markets where many customers were previously priced out and where scale lowers your costs over time.
Either way, quantify the value of removing the hassle, such as hours saved, errors avoided, costs reduced or risks lowered, and use it in your sales conversations.
A worked example
A small engineering services firm notices a recurring hassle among local manufacturers: when a machine part breaks and the original supplier no longer exists, there are no drawings. Maintenance teams waste days measuring parts by hand, guessing tolerances and chasing machine shops, while production is disrupted.
The firm creates a rapid service: it measures or scans the broken part, produces a manufacturing drawing within 48 hours, arranges machining with trusted partner shops and delivers the replacement. It also archives the drawing, so the next replacement is fast.
Customers previously faced several hassles at once: time, effort, skills they lacked and difficulty finding suppliers. The firm charges a premium for urgent turnaround, and many customers sign up for a service to document their critical spare parts in advance. The service becomes one of the firm’s most profitable offerings.
Communicating the hassle you solve
Customers do not always recognise a hassle until someone names it. Effective marketing describes the hassle vividly, in the customer’s own words, before presenting the solution: “Waiting a week for a quote while your project stalls?” or “Spending your weekend measuring broken parts?” When customers recognise their own frustration, they pay attention.
Then show the relief: before-and-after comparisons, time saved, errors avoided and testimonials from customers who no longer face the problem. A clear story of hassle and relief is far more persuasive than a list of features. Salespeople can use the same structure in conversations: ask about the hassle, let the customer describe its cost in their own words, then explain how it can be removed.
Frequently asked questions
Are big hassles only solved by technology companies? No. Many hassles are solved by better processes, services, design or business models. Technology often helps, but the insight comes from understanding the customer.
What if competitors copy the solution? Hassle-solving advantages last longer when they rest on capabilities, relationships, data, processes or scale that are hard to replicate. Keep improving the solution, and keep listening for the next hassle.
How do I know if a hassle is big enough? Ask what it costs customers now, how often it occurs, whether they already spend money or effort on workarounds and whether they would pay to remove it. Real spending on workarounds is a strong sign. Frequent, costly hassles that affect many customers are the most promising.
Summary
Customers pay to remove hassles: wasted time, effort, complexity, high costs, uncertainty, distraction from priorities, missing skills, difficulty finding suppliers, the need for expensive equipment and daily inconvenience. The bigger the hassle solved, the bigger the premium or market share available. Find hassles by mapping customer journeys, listening to complaints and observing real use, estimate their cost and design solutions that make customers glad to depend on you. Then choose whether to take your reward as premium, share or both.
Sources: small-business training notes on solving big hassles to create a big premium, including examples from Indian consumer and service businesses, together with general innovation practice. Examples are illustrations.
